A Change for Good
by Angeladex
Summary: Neville has been promoted. And he has to come to terms with that. He's the youngest Headmaster in centuries, and McGonagall has full faith in him. But he has niggling doubts. Probably because of the larger-than-life portrait of Severus Snape glaring at him. A little...Neville-centric slice-of-life. Because Headmaster Neville is important to me on a personal level. mild cursing.


Neville Longbottom carried a largeish box in his arms, ascending a long-unused and yet familiar moving staircase to ascend to the Headmaster's office. He'd gone through the belongings he'd accumulated through the last ten years, shrinking important things to put into the box (with the exception of his plants; they didn't agree with magical shrinking, they never were the same after he'd done it in the past, and you couldn't convince him that it didn't make a difference because he knew it _did_.)

He'd somehow become the youngest Headmaster of Hogwarts there'd been in a hundred years, when he'd come back to teach Herbology, replacing Professor Sprout. And now he was about to enter the office he'd entered so rarely—a handful of times as a student, under Dumbledore, really. That was how often he'd been inside. And how long it had been, too. Under McGonagall, in his recall, he'd never seen the space. She had come to him when she'd given him his promotion to Deputy Headmaster. And last week, when she'd given him his promotion to Headmaster, she had come to his flat in Hogsmeade.

He dropped the box quite abruptly when he finally entered through the doors. The space was empty of personal effects: indeed, McGonagall had been moving out of the office for months, now, at a leisurely pace, since it was the summer, and the building was empty of students. The wall opposite the door, as it had in Dumbledore's time, housed a veritable mosaic of portraits, each with a past Headmaster or Headmistress of Hogwarts as its subject.

Right behind the large, empty desk, (Oh, God. It would be _his_ desk.) was a larger-than-life frame, almost larger than Neville was tall. And the face of Severus Snape sneered down at him with contempt.

"Shut your mouth, Longbottom," the Snape in the portrait snapped.

"_Professor_ Longbottom, Severus," chided a familiar voice from a portrait further up on the wall—Albus Dumbledore, crooked nose and all, beaming at Neville behind his half-moon spectacles. "And I daresay he has been doing a fine job."

"Over here, Longbottom," called the stern voice of Minerva McGonagall.

"_Professor_ Longbottom, Minerva," said Dumbledore's portrait again, and Neville shook himself, picking up his box from the floor and setting it softly on the empty desk, before moving to Headmaster McGonagall, who was struggling to pull a large picture frame from a small coin purse.

"For yours, Professor?" Neville panted, pulling on the purse as McGonagall straightened, glaring at the frame and swishing her wand impatiently. Neville stumbled as the purse was quite suddenly not as awkward to hold, the frame having come out to rest gently against the wall. He heard a faint crashing sound come from inside the purse.

"Oh, and that's the bookshelf. Damn," McGonagall frowned, taking the coin purse from Neville and looking into it.

Neville felt…odd. Out of place. Here in this room, surrounded by the portraits of every Headmaster and Headmistress who had ever served Hogwarts. Standing next to Professor McGonagall who, for all they were colleagues, now, and for all she'd promoted him, still held authority over him in a way he didn't think would ever go away. And she'd _sworn_ in front of him.

And yet it _had_ been different. He knew that. Over these last few years as her Deputy Headmaster, where he spent time both teaching Herbology and attending the regular meetings to discuss the betterment of the school, he had been given respect and his opinions were heard and considered. A few of his ideas had even been implemented, which had floored him.

(It still floored him that he could have a say, and that it might be listened to, among these adults, some of whom had known and taught him as a student, here.)

The tutoring program had been his idea. And the student volunteers who ran it weren't all Ravenclaws, either. Neville had simply expressed that there were likely many students who might fall behind—as indeed he would have, in his early years, had Hermione Granger not been there to help him. And he'd been lucky to have her. But not all students who fell behind were so lucky to have a Hermione Granger.

Professor McGonagall had poked her wand into her bag to restore order to the chaos inside, and Neville couldn't help the way he turned once more towards the large desk, and the larger portrait behind it. Snape was still glowering at him. The part inside Neville that was still thirteen and deathly afraid of his old Potions professor quailed, but the other part—the part that was a grown man, no matter how little he felt it just now, among the likes of Dumbledore's portrait, Snape's portrait, and Professor McGonagall, amongst whom he felt exactly eleven years old again—let his face settle into a detached interest, even as his heart beat wildly in his chest.

"So it's really you, then? Longbottom? The next Headmaster of Hogwarts? God help us all," Snape's portrait sneered, even as Dumbledore's portrait chastised him.

"He has performed above and beyond the call expected of him as Deputy Headmaster, Severus. That dreadful hazing in Slytherin house, or the little ring of students they found out had been using Polyjuice Potion to impersonate their classmates because they weren't up to going to classes."

That caught Neville off-guard. Dumbledore knew about that?

"Yes, yes, and his delightful anti-bullying campaign that makes the Ministry stick their noses into everyone's affairs every bloody fortnight," Snape retorted.

"Language, Severus," Professor McGonagall said blithely, seemingly satisfied with the repairs she'd done in her bag, and paying attention again to Neville, who had been waiting politely.

The bullying had been an issue. Even before Neville's time. And it wasn't just a student issue, it had been a staff issue. Neville had simply suggested that if the traditions at Hogwarts continued to run their course, the past would take away their chance at progress. Progress that desperately needed to be made. No matter how long-lived Wizards were, the fact of the matter was that Muggles were fast outstripping them, making progress faster, simply because Wizardkind refused to admit that there might be a better way of doing things. This school of thought had permeated everything that Wizards did, and had become imbued in their very culture.

(Neville had to admit that this was largely Hannah talking; she'd taken Muggle Studies very seriously, and Neville was also informed due to conversations he'd had with Hermione and Harry, both of whom had extensive dealings with both worlds and saw the same thing.)

"Pay him no mind," Professor McGonagall was saying, looking at Neville askance over her spectacles. "He's just being snippy because of his demotion."

With that, Professor McGonagall performed a tidy bit of Magic that somehow moved the portraits about and nestled them neatly together, though Neville wasn't quite sure if any of the portraits had grown smaller, or if, indeed, the wall had grown bigger. The large empty frame took its place behind the desk, and another Spell later, it was suddenly occupied with a portrait of McGonagall, blinking down at them, as a much smaller portrait of Snape glared at her from its place slightly to the left.

"Severus, I'll not have you pestering him. He has made invaluable contributions to this school. Things that the Headmasters of old had failed to see, or been unwilling to see." She gestured at all of the portraits, and Neville's face burned.

"It's really not that—"

"You hush, Longbottom, and let me speak well of you," McGonagall snapped, interrupting his protest so vehemently that Neville obediently closed his mouth, his teeth coming together inside his mouth with an almost audible 'clack'.

"He brought so many things to the light that we all ought to be ashamed of ourselves!" McGonagall was addressing Snape, but she again gestured to the whole wall: the hundreds of portraits of past Headmasters and Headmistresses of Hogwarts, spanning the centuries that the school had been running, and, Neville noticed, a few looked genuinely abashed, even while others were rolling their eyes, much as Snape was.

"Intimidation being used against students, the atrocious curriculum for Defense Against the Dark Arts, the elitist groups and clubs we had to disband, the blatantly biased selection process for prefects and Head Boys and Girls; even for heads of houses. Really, I thought it all harmless. Because we'd been doing it the same way for centuries," McGonagall said passionately, and Neville felt the stirrings of pride in his heart. Because these had been his words, once.

When he'd been an Auror, with passion for justice. Or before that, when he'd been a child, bullied and belittled. And the offer had crossed his desk. Almost jokingly. A letter from Professor Sprout. Asking if he wanted to be a teacher. Because what better way was there to fix the future, than to educate those who would represent Tomorrow?

And it had all just sort of…happened. From there. Hadn't it?

Because if he hadn't gotten the offer, he'd not have applied at all.

If he hadn't gotten the job, he'd not have moved to Hogsmeade.

If he hadn't moved to Hogsmeade, he wouldn't have reconnected with Hannah.

Gotten married.

Gotten promoted.

And now McGonagall was using the passion that had once been his, alone. Neville's face was burning. He was embarrassed, but…proud. She attributed this all to him, when really, it wasn't. The problems had always been there. Neville was just going about addressing them differently, was all.

It was nice to know that he'd been heard. He'd honestly come into the job with the expectation that his opinions would be dismissed; that all teachers would be like…well, Snape.

How pleasantly shocking to realize that many teachers were more like McGonagall; if his idea was sound, he was taken seriously at most every turn. McGonagall had always prided an ability to logic. Neville knew that, being in her house, and the knowledge had served him well, over the years. So well, in fact, that here he stood: replacing her as Headmaster of Hogwarts. Her youngest Headmaster in centuries.

"He's taken the steps to get this school going in the right direction, after going so wrong for so many years, relying on tradition. And there's no one I'd rather take over for me, now," Professor McGonagall turned to Neville, then, all fierce pride and fury. "Finish putting it right, boy," she said firmly.

To which Neville could only nod. "I'll…I'll try, Professor."

Then, her fervor spent, McGonagall set to her goodbyes. She helped him set the new wards, and turned the castle over to his care, a series of complex Spells Neville hoped he'd be able to find again, with research, otherwise he'd never be able to retire, simply because he'd be forever connected to Hogwarts.

"Let me know if you need anything, Longbottom," she said at the end. "I hope your search proves fruitful, regarding your replacement. I'm sorry to not stay while that goes on, but…I've rather earned my retirement, I think."

Neville was confused for a moment, before realizing she meant the search for the Deputy Headmaster. Oh, God, and a new Herbology teacher. The title he no longer held. Because he really was the Headmaster, now. Bloody Hell. It was real, now, in a way it hadn't been before, not really.

When he'd told Hannah, she'd been so proud, and set immediately to applying to a position in the school, too; Madame Pomfrey had taken her on for a go at healing, which Hannah was good at, after her time as landlady at the Leaky Cauldron.

And then Professor McGonagall was vacating the office, leaving it rather bare, but at once…leaving the heavy weight of expectation as her portrait looked at him in interest.

And it was amazing. He was elated. He was aghast. He was honored.

Humbled.

Really, he hadn't done all that much. Just…taken steps so that the Hogwarts he _worked_ in would be better than the Hogwarts he'd attended as a student.

-o-

AUTHORS NOTE

I've been sitting on this for a while. Delaying my inevitable reread of the HP series (which I last reread after graduating college when I was...25?) Because I've known that the next reread would inevitably be my putting a lens on them that I haven't, before, reading them more as an adult than a child. My reread when I was 25 was purely nostalgia.

And I wasn't ready. Not then.

I might be, now.

This is just one of the thoughts I've had, lately. It might go further. Let me know if it's well-received!


End file.
